ERGO you are in foreclosure in the first place.GFC meltdown saw values drop 20 to over 60% in certain markets  .. your 70% LTV loan was underwater right out of the gate.So to answer your questions.In General... you have a foreclsoureyour value is 10% less than it was when you made the loan.. reason flipper butchered the job ... and again depending on state it could take 1 to 3 years to actually foreclose and of course your not getting any payments.. so your interest is wiped out. your cost of doing the foreclosure again state specific.. and I have never met a defaulted borrower that paid the property tax's  ( and again state specific how bad this will be).. you have selling costs usually 8% and you normally have to spend money getting the home marketable I have never met a defaulted borrower who left a home in perfect shape.So you add 10% market devaluation  8% for sales costs.. 3% for foreclosure costs.. 2% for back taxforce placed insurance and utls.. and depending on the condition of the home 5 to 10% for rehab .. you can see how this eats into your 30%  .. then take states Like were i live and properly filed mechanics liens are super liens they jump ahead of your mortgage.. this can be thousands up to 100 thousands if your flipper totally screwed the subs. 

Go find someone else you likes to pour baby shampoo in monkey's and rabbit's eyes to lease your house.

Short term, I am looking to get my feet wet, I want to learn as much as I can about rental properties, flipping, and buy and hold to gain enough information to be comfortable with my first deal.Long term, I hope to acquire enough rental property to produce enough passive income that would allow me to spend more time with my wife and newborn baby girl.I would like to thank everyone in advance for your knowledge and time in working with me.

Do the downstairs tenants have a baby that the noise is keeping awake?

I worked on ships out of Houston and New Orleans for twenty years and I would have been wiped out by all the hurricanes and floods these years.

I much prefer tenants I've placed and rehabs I've done to ensure they're up to my quality standards and you don't suddenly have 11 out of 50 roofs go bad in a year wiping out an entire year of net income.  

Just be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water and rule out good areas.

Buying a primary residence will wipe away my liquidity but at least put me in the game of building equity and benefiting from appreciation and get me out of renting.

If you bid on a property at auction all encumbrances junior to that lien usually are wiped away but anything senior stays.  

When baby #2 was conceived, I knew it was time to get out of our 2 bedroom duplex that we rented.